


How to Summon a Lemon

by Phoenix_Fairy



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Draco what've you done, Humour, Parody, Pranks, Snape is amused, Summoning goes wrong, cheeky Lemon, evil Lemon, no demon but Lemon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-05-09
Packaged: 2018-09-28 11:23:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10098125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix_Fairy/pseuds/Phoenix_Fairy
Summary: Draco wants to give his good old enemy Harry Potter the-boy-who-does-not-die a fright. Thank God he found this book on how to summon a demon, but it would have been to his advantage to read more precisely... Dremon-Pairing :)AU





	1. How to Summon a Demon

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and no money is being made from this story. Just borrowed some characters ;)

Dusk was already falling when Draco Malfoy tried to walk through the corridors of the fourth floor, looking as innocent as possible. Every now and then, he casted a glance over his shoulder, just to play safe. Not that he was up to some mischief, no, he was just heading down to the library. More precisely, to the Restricted Section, but no one needed to know about this. He was just going to the library, there was nothing wrong with it.If Granger was allowed to practically live in the library, then he could also go there and look for a book. After talking himself into believing a dozen times, he really _nearly_ believed it.

Again, it wasn’t that he was up to some mischief, he just wanted to be sure to… _well_ , to keep a good answer in readiness if someone asked him about his wandering around. He just hoped that his Head of House wouldn’t see him. Draco knew that now, after the war, Snape would also deduct points from him, regardless the fact that it would be his own house which will lose points. And Draco was sure, very sure that it wouldn’t be only 30 points for what he was planning to do. It was a bit challenging for Draco to find the library as he had actually never been there during the entire seven years at Hogwarts. In fact, he had is little tricks and sources of getting an acceptable essay since most of the time they were written by his former girlfriend Pansy anyway.

He sighed. “The first time at the library, and straight away looking for the Restricted Section”, he thought. Ultimately entering the library after a final glance over his shoulder, he saw Madame Pince at a bookshelf far away from the entrance. She seemed to be engrossed in repairing some old books, so Draco made use of an opportune moment to reach the Restricted Section unnoticably. He slipped through a dark wooden door and immediately started to look out for a special book. He pulled out a small piece of parchment, unfolded it and brought it closer to his eyes as the light already was too dim.

 _Rituals of Summoning and Conjuration_ , he read. “It must be somewhere here”, Draco murmured. He was glad that he found a listing of the books in the Restricted Section in his father’s office. He was certain that his father’s library would contain books about summoning charms, but he was also certain that these books were way darker than those at Hogwarts. And finally, his intention wasn’t to summon some dark demon guy, but only to scare the hell out of Potter-the-boy-who-lived-and-cannot-be-killed. Draco wandered around scanning the shelves for the book he was looking for.

After what seemed like ages, he finally found it – a dusty, rust brown book on the top shelf. He stepped on the lowest shelf, caring little about the mess his shoes made, and grabbed the book. He jumped down from the bookshelf and looked around, hoping that Madame Pince didn’t hear the noise. As the old librarian didn’t turn up, Draco made his way out of the library as silently as he entered it. He knew from a more or less reliable source that the girls’ lavatory on first floor would be perfect for his little experiment as no girls would use these toilets because of Mourning Myrtle.

As it was now already about 7 pm, Draco hurried to get into his common room and hide his new acquisition somewhere there. He really had to hurry as the feast would start in a few minutes and he knew that it would be conspicuous, if not suspicious, if he didn’t attend the meal. Draco would have loved to put his idea into action, but it would also be suspicious if Harry didn’t attend the meal, either after being scared witless. Draco was convinced that it would be so much easier to try his little… experiment on an innocent Hufflepuff first to see if everything went right. On the other side – Hufflepuff wasn’t his worst enemy, so it wouldn’t be fair. “By the way, Potter is neither…”, he thought. Against every expectation, Crabbe and Goyle were his declared enemies, or how he called them to himself: “Crap’n’Goyle”. Draco was absolutely sure that one fine day, they would talked him to death with their totally stupid ideas. Well, braniacs look different.

 _Anyway_ … he disgressed. Draco put an invisible-charm over the book and covered it with his blanket, just to be on the safe side. Then he made his way to the Great Hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my dear readers,
> 
> If you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it, let me know :)


	2. Lemon Demon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and no money is being made from this story. Just borrowed some characters ;)
> 
> Thanks to my wonderful beta, cmmlovr :)

As it was close to the Christmas break, essays were due and Draco didn't find the time to look at the book. But then suddenly the last classes were over and nearly everybody was scurrying through the castle, collecting things which needed to be packed in trunks and wishing their friends a merry Christmas.

As Draco returned to Hogwarts a week before the break ended, it was finally time to read the book. As only a few students were in the castle, he also didn't get bothered by Crabbe and Goyle. This was indeed very helpful, as Draco had his struggles with the book. One evening, he grabbed the book, lied down on his bed and started to search for the charm he was looking for. This was the point when he ran into difficulties.

After two hours, Draco was racked with headache. The pages became blurred and he slowly lost interest in the book. It contained a lot of strange texts which he didn't understand at all and many of the texts were written in Old English and old symbols. Draco had to admit that it was more nerve-wracking than he expected it to be. To be honest, he thought he would just sneak into the library, get the book, learn the spell and scare the hell out of Potter, _The End_.

Well… _no_.

It took him the next two days to get through only a third of the book as the explanations and possible applications were so hard to make out. (Well, maybe it wasn't only the font and the language the texts were written in which took him so long to read. Maybe Draco wasn't so much into reading at all as he simply barely did it. In fact, he really avoided any kind of effort. Whether he let Pansy write his essays or Potter and Weasley brew his potions in his third year (here a big thanks to Buckbeak…), Draco found his ways to escape any possible kind of work.)

On the third day, Draco started to scan the texts rather than to pay close attention to it. In the evening on the fourth day, he finally found what he was looking for. _How To Summon a Demon_ , it says. Draco quickly made himself familiar with the text and decided that, as Potter and most of the other students had arrived on this evening, he would start his experiment tomorrow. Till the next day, Draco told nearly every Slytherin about his plan, knowing that they wouldn't tell a teacher.

After lunch he made his way to the girls' lavatory on the first floor. He quickly read through the instructions again. Draco pulled out his wand and drew a pentagram and a circle around it. Then he put three white candles around the circle and lit them with his wand. Draco glanced again at the instructions and murmured the spell to summon the demon. A loud _puff_ could resounded and smoke filled the lavatory. Draco coughed and waved his hand to remove the smoke. After a few minutes the smoke dispersed, but no demon appeared in its place. Draco looked a bit disappointed and glanced at the pentagram.

And there it was: a tiny little lemon. Draco stared at it, disbelieving. He shook his head, grabbed the book and flicked frantically through the chapter about summoning.

Suddenly, the door to the girls' lavatory flew open and Draco found himself opposite to Severus Snape. He was standing in the doorframe, hands on hips, and, what scared Draco most, with a malicious smirk on his face.

He looked down to Draco.

"Well, my dear Godson. Next time you try to scare someone by summoning some dark objects such as demons, you first should learn how to read. No matter how much you dislike Granger, but she would have noticed the obvious: This book is full of old texts written in old language and fond. You didn't read a chapter about how to summon a demon but more about how to summon a lemon. Try to recognize and read texts in italics. By the way, nice lemon you summoned!".

With these words, Snape turned around and Draco could hear the dark laughter of his Godfather.


	3. Evil Lemon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and no money is being made from this story. Just borrowed some characters ;)
> 
> Thanks to my beta cmmlovr!!

After Snape had left the Girls’ bathroom, Draco was left sitting on the floor, unable to move. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. He’d made a mistake – a bloody stupid mistake.  
He _knew_ it. He should have read the book more carefully.

One letter. One _stupid_ _little letter_.

  
Draco shook his head in disbelief. When at last he was able to lift his jaw from the ground, he looked again at what exactly he had summoned.  
Finally he shut his mouth, since it had fallen open once he’d realized what it was that he’d summoned. His face was still frozen in shock and confusion, however. Turning his eyes away from the door to the book, he saw that Snape had been right.  
There it was, written plainly in italics: How to Summon a Lemon. Draco ran his fingers over the word lemon, stunned. How had he mixed up the letter ‘L’ with the letter ‘D’?

He shook his head disbelievingly again. If someone had entered the lavatory right in this moment, she would have seen something the world has never seen before: a completely floored and speechless Draco Malfoy, lacking his usual conceited arrogance. Suddenly, a squeaky voice cut through the silence.  
“Hey!”  
Draco didn’t move or respond. In fact, he hadn’t even noticed. His feelings of shock at his own stupid failure were deep-seated. The voice sounded again, this time stronger and angrier.  
“Hey!”  
The Slytherin looked around, confused when he didn’t see anyone else in the room.

“HEY! Master! Bloody hell, would you look down here?!” The voice trilled.  
Draco did as he was told (which he would normally never do, but under the circumstances…). He gasped, his mouth falling open again as his eyes widened with surprise. He found himself faced with… the lemon. The bloody bright- lemon he had summoned. “What?!” he croaked. “Masteeer!” the tiny thing shrieked, throwing its even tinier arms enthusiastically in the air.  
“Wait! What-?! Arms?!” Draco had barely time to think as the lemon went on, got on its knees and bowed to him. “What are you _doing_?” an unusually inarticulate Draco stuttered.

He shook his head, unable to believe his eyes. “I must be going bonkers,” he mumbled. The lemon took a peek at him, still bowing. “Lemon is serving Master Draco,” it squeaked. “Since this situation is too crazy to be real, let me ask you this: why on earth should I be your Master?” Draco paused briefly before adding, “Oh, and stand up! I don’t wanna be seen with a stupid citrus fruit bowing to me,” he snapped, his hands clinging even more to the book as if the stupid thing would be helpful.  
Lemon stood up, groaned and put its hand on its arching back. “Well, that was indeed long enough, Master Draco,” it squeaked, levelling a horribly angry look at Draco.  
The Slytherin narrowed his eyes, regarding the lemon with anger. However, this was mostly due to his disbelief at the lemon in front of him.

“Look,” he snapped, “do you really think you’re in a position to _complain_?” Lemon brandished its left arm, taking two steps towards Draco. “You’re might be my Master, but that doesn’t mean that you should make stupid comments. And, since we’re talking about _stupidity_ , let’s make something good out of your _inability to read_ ,” Lemon replied, garnishing its sentence with an evil smirk that could easily compete with Snape’s.

Draco opened his mouth, ready to give his little citrus fruit a right royal dressing down, but this cheeky _thing_ didn’t care _at all_. Lemon rubbed its hands and looked at Draco with narrowed eyes and an – if that would be possible- even more evil smile than before, softly chuckling. “Well, you don’t like Harry Potter, do ya?” it asked slowly, its eyes focusing on the Slytherin, observing every small movement that he made.  
Draco raised his left eyebrow in a Snape-like manner, but before he could answer, Lemon kept on talking. “Oh, don’t look at me like that; I know a lot more than you might guess.” It flopped onto its small bottom, putting its elbows on its knees and resting its head on its hands.

‘Not quite the servant I’m used to,’ Draco mused, thinking better of commenting aloud on the lemon’s appearance. Lemon waved its hand in a vague gesture at Draco. “Besides, raising eyebrows in that way looks _so_ much better on Snape. Don’t even try to compete with him: you’ll lose. He trained hard, very hard, to wear those expressions well.”  
Draco simply stared at Lemon and blinked, not knowing how to respond to that. “Now, correct me if I’m wrong – though I’m sure I’ll never be wrong,” the lemon giggled at its own comment. Draco was starting to fear this lemon; it didn’t giggle as one normally would (what was he thinking?! Lemon’s don’t usually giggle at all!), but more like demonic laughter.  
“Sorry, I digress. Anyway, one of your biggest wishes is to show all,” Lemon stretched out the word ‘all’ to several syllables, whilst also widening its tiny arms as far as they would go before continuing, “the world how much you hate the people in this castle.”

It paused.

“Tadaa!” Draco didn’t respond, blinking stupidly instead. Lemon shot him an angry look. It didn’t like that Master Draco hadn’t shown any signs of being even _slightly_ impressed by it. It stretched its arms a little further, “For heaven’s sake, TA-bloody-DA!” Finally, Malfoy returned his attention to Lemon.

“What do you mean ‘ta-da’?” he asked with a trembling voice.  
He’d never had a trembling voice before meeting Lemon, but was forced to admit that Lemon indeed had the potential to scare his little Slytherin arse. He liked to be disliked by the Gryffindors; in fact, it was _fun_ to annoy them. Still, he felt that Lemon was already having too much fun, especially considering its current expression.

“Well, what do you think of playing pranks on a couple of people, Master Draco?” Draco didn’t need to respond, he only smirked. He found himself torn between being afraid of Lemon and actually starting to like it. Lemon grinned when it noticed the look on Draco’s face.

“We could start by throwing Longbottom into the Great Lake as he’s so into water plants,” squeaked Lemon dramatically. “And to be honest, we both know that it wouldn’t be too bad if someone were to get hurt. I mean, just _look_ at this personified failure of a Gryffindor. And were he to somehow drown, there are plenty of others to take his place.” Lemon sighed happily, its expression dreamy as its imagination supplied it with one of its happiest days on earth.

Seeing that Draco was not likely to respond, Lemon boomed out, “That’s enough talk for now. I’m leaving this castle of dunderheads for now, Master Draco, but I’ll be back. _Mischief_ _managed_!” Its voice was surprisingly loud for such a tiny thing.

The blonde Slytherin barely had time to say “What?” before Lemon winked evilly at him and disappeared with a tiny _plop_.


	4. Good-looking Master Draco

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and no money is being made from this story. Just borrowed some characters ;)
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks to my beta cmmlovr! :)

A few had passed and Draco hadn’t heard or seen anything from his Lemon-Demon. He finished brushing his teeth before bed and stood before the mirror of the bathroom – his bathroom.  
As the Slytherin Prefect had contracted an unknown illness during his winter holidays in Romania and had been forced into quarantine in the hospital wing, Draco had been pronounced the new Prefect.

This new status came with some great benefits, such as his own room and bathroom. Draco grinned and tried some… _poses_ in front of the mirror. Oh yes, he was _extraordinarily_ good-looking, and when he stood like _this_ – Draco twisted his body to imitate the traditional bodybuilding pose - _everyone_ could see his muscles.   
He grinned, admiring his God-given body with pride. He did the Malfoy name proud, after all; the Malfoys were known for being handsome and finely bred, so it wasn’t _surprising_ that he was a damn good-looking man, too. He nodded, pleased with his appearance. 

Draco’s posing was followed by some odd groan-sounds as he tried to figure out in which position his adorable face and Adonis-like body would look best. 

Suddenly, he heard tinny laughter and turned around quickly.   
There it stood - Lemon, his joy and his doom, hands pressed on its mouth, desperately trying to muffle its giggling.

“No matter how hard you squeeze your hands, I can still _hear_ you!” Draco snapped at Lemon, his eyes narrowing angrily. Lemon looked as if it might burst due to laughing. “That makes two of us!” it squeaked.   
Draco shook his head vigorously, causing strands of his carefully styled hair to fall into his face.

“What do you mean?” he asked carefully. Internally, he berated himself, almost screaming that he shouldn’t be putting up with such disrespectful behavior, and should smack Lemon upside the head to teach it a lesson. But… Lemon might’ve been small… but Draco was certain of the enormous evil potential which surely slumbered in this citrus fruit. And while he wasn’t entirely sure of the extent of its powers, the Slytherin knew it would be foolish to act against Lemon, choosing instead to avoid provoking it.

“What do you mean by ‘no matter how hard I squeeze’? he asked again. Lemon glanced at him, an evil smile sliding onto its face. “Well…” Another bout of suppressed giggling stopped Lemon from replying.   
Once the giggles had dissipated, it took a deep breath and tried again.

“Well, no matter how hard you squeeze your arms together,” it attempted once more to stem its laughter before continuing, “I still can’t see _anything_!”

“That’s enough out of you, you bloody fruit!” Draco gritted out sharply. Draco had inherited his father’s peculiarity; he preferred to shave without magic, and had done since the age of fourteen.   
So, when he grabbed Lemon and chucked it spitefully into the still-full sink, it was immediately covered in water and shaving foam. He held Lemon in the mixture of lukewarm water and shaving foam mercilessly, ignoring its protesting, squeaking, and kicking. Suddenly, a pain shot through his right forefinger, causing him to release Lemon and pull his hand out of the water, inspecting it thoroughly.

“Ouch!” Draco yelled. The Slytherin looked angrily at Lemon upon seeing the super-tiny bite marks on his finger. They might have been small, but _damn_ did they hurt.   
Lemon made its way to the edge of the washing basin, performing a tiny breaststroke to get there.

“You’re a nitwit, Master Draco! Do that again and I’ll break your finger!” Lemon threatened him furiously. Draco was becoming more and more aware of Lemon’s evil potential. He wasn’t quite sure how to handle his encounters with it; it was a double-edged sword.   
Draco raised his palms apologetically, “Okay, okay. Just calm down, would you?” He took a step backwards, just to be on the safe side. Then he turned around, hoping Lemon wouldn’t care, and made his way to his bed.

With a sigh, he noticed that the light in the bathroom was still on and his wand was out of reach, which meant that he had to leave his warm and cozy bed. Sighing again, he sat up. Suddenly, a poff sounded and the light went out, leaving Draco in complete darkness.

“ _Nox_!” squeaked Lemon loudly from the vicinity of his bedside table, letting out a giggle. Draco slumped back into his pillow. “You have to say it _before_ you switch off the lights, otherwise it doesn’t really make sense,” he mumbled into the darkness, shaking his head.   
Lemon thought differently and didn’t hesitate to proclaim its superior knowledge, “I say _Nox_ when I want to say it. I don’t need spells to make my incantations work.”

Lemon sighed in satisfaction. “Now sleep, Master Draco. Tomorrow will be a long day,” it said, elongating ‘long’ to several syllables, “I recommend we start with Neville.”

Lemon’s words were the last thing Draco heard as he fell asleep.


	5. Planning the first evil action

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and no money is being made from this story. Just borrowed some characters ;)
> 
>  
> 
> cmmlovr, I owe it to you that my story sounds so smooth and nicely!

Draco was woken early the next day; a little too early, in his opinion. He lay on his stomach, his open mouth drooling on his pillow. Something nudged his nose over and over again.  
After a few moments he was finally annoyed enough to lazily open one eye, immediately finding Lemon in his face and looking disgustedly at his puddle of drool.

“Oooh, Master Draco, were you dreaming of me? You’re drooling,” it boomed loudly in Draco’s ear before winking at him.  
Lemon seemed to be the definition of “too much”: too loud, too annoying, too ridiculous, too evil, too angry, too... Draco’s thoughts were interrupted by Lemon’s less-than gentle prodding.

“Oi! I told you to GET UP!” it squeaked again, giving Draco a good final smack on his nose to strengthen its intention, before hopping onto the night table.

After a strenuous breakfast – Lemon didn’t hesitate to make use of every opportunity to present suggestions to Draco regarding evil pranks such as poisoning McGonagall’s pancakes – his day had only gone downhill from there.  
Draco was pleased that the nerve-wracking day had finally come to an end. He still hadn’t found out how to control Lemon completely. He knew that it would follow orders, but apparently not _every_ order _exactly_. Just before the first classes started, Draco had ordered Lemon to keep quiet and to stay in his satchel.  
Well, Lemon stayed in his bag, all right.

But, smart as it was, it exploited loopholes in order to ignore orders in a manner that would make the best house-elf proud.  
So, it stayed in Draco’s bag – _that’s a good Lemon_ , but that didn’t stop it from trying fervently to stretch its tiny yellow head out of the bag, commenting on the teachers as well as other students.  
It had cost Draco much of his patience to get through the day with Lemon in tow. At one point, he was really tempted to curse Lemon.

It was during Transfiguration, about two minutes before class ended, when McGonagall had turned her back to the class, that Lemon decided to strike while the iron was hot and make his move. Draco had thought that in two remaining minutes even Lemon couldn’t pull anything.

_Apparently not._

  
Just when she bent down to pick up her tartan scarf from where it had fallen, Lemon released an _incredibly_ loud and embarrassing fart-noise.  
This seemed so funny to Lemon itself that it nearly burst from holding in its laughter by pressing its hands against its agape mouth.  
Luckily for Draco, McGonagall never found out that the citrus fruit in his bag was the source of evil. Before it could successfully do anything more damaging, class had ended.

For the duration of dinner, Draco managed to make Lemon stay in his room following an argument that lasted nearly ten-minutes and that spanned the broad field of interpretation of the sentence “stay in the room”. Draco cut off Lemon’s nerve-wracking discussion with a simple “Wrap it up!” but that didn’t stop Lemon from screwing up its eyes and sticking out its tongue.  
Draco took this as a reluctant “Yes, Master Draco” and hurried off to dinner.

About an hour later, he made his way back to his room, slightly concerned about a presumably very bored Lemon, and what it might have gotten up to in his absence. As he noticed his wand missing, he picked up speed and urgently the door to his room.

He had already expected to find Lemon a) vanished, b) hexing an unsuspecting student or c) somehow drowning Neville whilst simultaneously poisoning McGonagall.

Having gotten to know Lemon better, Draco wouldn’t be too surprised if all three options had happened at the same time, to be honest. But, as it turned out, he found none of the above. Instead, Lemon was just lounging on Draco’s pillow, its yellow head resting on its arms, legs crossed.  
As Draco stormed into his bedroom, Lemon gave him a conciliatory glance. “I used the time to look up some potions for the Scottish woman’s pancakes!” it proclaimed delightedly.

“We’re _not_ going to poison her!” Draco hissed, attempting to control the growing seed of evil in Lemon. Lemon threw its tiny arms up in the air, letting out loud sigh. “ _My, my,_ no need to wet yourself, Master Draco!” Draco sighed, nodding with his head towards the door, gesturing for Lemon to follow him out of the room. Lemon hopped from the bed, snapping its fingers; and a wink later, it peeked out of Draco’s jacket pocket.

Lemon’s left arm shot up, its hand balled to a fist like a knight riding out to a joust. “Let’s _gooo_!” it boomed, a happy smile full of evil expectations on its face. After a ten-minute walk they finally made their way to a suit of armour opposite the girls’ lavatory on the first floor. Draco pulled Lemon out of his pocket and set it on a stone bust nearby, before hiding behind the suit of armour. “An’ now?” asked Lemon, rather unimpressed.

“Well now, _Lemony_ ”, Draco snapped, “I want you to sneak to the girls’ lavatory and swap the sign with the boys’” No comment was made by Lemon. Draco risked a glance, not sure how well Lemon had taken his instruction. He found himself facing a shocked-looking Lemon, eyes as wide as its mouth was open.  
“ _Seriously_?!”. Lemon rolled its eyes, elongating the word infinitely.

“My grandma would fall asleep instantly if she had heard that! Uhh!”, Lemon moaned, letting itself drop back on the stone surface of the bust. What use was having a Lemon with the potential to scare the pants off of his godfather, Snape, and not taking advantage of its evil potential? Lemon couldn’t understand its Master. To be honest, it was more a ‘wouldn’t understand', rather than ‘couldn’t’.  
“Go on!” Draco insisted, and so Lemon hadn’t any choice but do as it was ordered to.

It hopped from the bust and a moment later, it was out of sight.


	6. Poor Neville

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and no money is being made from this story. Just borrowed some characters ;)
> 
>  
> 
> cmmlovr, you’re doing great work, thanks so much!

Lemon hopped down from the bust, its little feet quickly bringing it near the girl’s lavatory. Halfway, it turned around for a second, just long enough for Draco to see Lemon sticking out its tongue, then it was gone.

Draco leaned against the stone wall, arms crossed against his chest, waiting for Lemon to return. Suddenly, he heard a tiny plop, and Lemon re-appeared on the suit of armour. “Done, Master Draco.” Draco nodded in acknowledgement.  
Seconds passed by, stretching into minutes which felt like hours, at least for Lemon. It started to get agitated, and Draco knew he had to intervene quickly to avoid its becoming noisy as well.  
“Will you please be quiet?” he hissed. Lemon stared at him.  
“NO!” it squeaked simply.  
“Well, then I command you to be silent this instant!”

Again Lemon stared at him long and hard. Unfortunately for Lemon, it was simply unable to ignore such a direct command. It sighed, nodding slightly.  
Draco turned away to focus on the hallway and the toilets again. Luckily for Lemon, he didn’t see it pretending to faint due to being bored stiff.  
Everything went as Draco had planned.

He hadn’t told Lemon that he knew that Longbottom would inevitably come to this floor due to his incredibly bad sense of direction. To be honest, it wasn’t the first time that Neville had taken the wrong set of stairs, leading him to the wrong floor.  
He hoped that Lemon would enjoy itself, as it had pestered him about pranking - or rather, killing - Neville all day. And, speak of the devil… The sound of quick steps could be heard, followed seconds later by the appearance of Neville Longbottom, who hadn’t even registered their presence as he dashed for the bathroom.

  
He already had taken the wrong staircase three times after dinner, fallen over a first year, and gotten caught in two vanishing steps – suffice to say, he wasn’t having a good day. All poor Neville wanted was to use the toilet. He’d intended on using the one in his common room, but after his nightmarish ramble through three-quarters of the castle, he thought that the first toilet he encountered on his adventurous journey would be as good as any.  
As he sprinted through the second-floor corridor, he saw a sign out of the corner of his eye that said something with toilet.  
“At last!” he sighed, relieved. He hurried into the room without a second thought. Now that caught Lemon’s attention; it sat up, its big eyes following Neville as he entered the wrong bathroom.

And that was it. Nothing happened.

“That’s it?” Lemon elongated the word “it” sadly. Draco rolled his eyes.  
“Wait” he replied softly, putting Lemon on the head of the bust. “Now let’s see how you’ll like this!” he whispered.

Moments later, another set of footsteps sounded on the stone floor. A sudden splash and loud, girlish scream could be heard coming out of the girls’ bathroom, together with high-pitched laughter that could only belong to Moaning Myrtle.  
Seconds later McGonagall and Snape hurtled down the corridor to investigate the odd noise. Draco patted himself on the back for remembering to use a Disillusionment Charm on himself and Lemon.

Lemon hopped up and down, excited to see what would happen next. Just as McGonagall and Snape had reached the bathroom, Neville dashed out, shaking and screaming bloody murder.  
Naturally, Moaning Myrtle followed close behind, still laughing her ghost butt off as she exacted her ghostly justice.  
It seemed as if Neville didn’t need to breathe, as he continued to scream in one breath. Although he stopped right in front of his teachers, that didn’t stop him from waving his arms and screaming hysterically as Moaning Myrtle continued to scare the living daylights out of him.

McGonagall laid her hand on her chest, trying to cope with the fright Neville had given her.  
Snape was simply staring at the still-screaming Neville, his face an emotionless mask.  
Nothing could impress nor surprise Severus Snape; after all, he had become accustomed to the accidents and weird situations Neville-I-could-destroy-the-whole-castle-by-simply-throwing-ingredients-wildly-into-potions-Longbottom seemed to cause.

To be honest, it seemed inevitable to Snape that Longbottom would eventually go into the wrong bathroom. He was surprised it hadn’t happened earlier, actually.  
Sometimes, when he was really bored, he made bets with Flitwick, the only teacher – besides Minerva- whose company he enjoyed. Most of the bets involved Longbottom; the most recent being when he’d accidentally go into the wrong bathroom.

As he’d thought, it was only a matter of time. ‘Check!’ he thought to himself smugly. But there was still something missing for Severus to win the bet. Little by little, Neville seemed to notice who he was actually yelling at: Minerva McGonagall, the person for whom he had the most respect (second only to his grandmother, of course); and Severus-I’m-going-to-kill-you-Longbottom!-Snape.

His eyes widened and his scream slowly died out.  
As Neville fainted, he fell directly onto Snape, which naturally caused Moaning Myrtle to laugh even harder.

However, noting a strict glare from McGonagall, Myrtle did a disappearing act as fast as inhumanly possible. Snape tried really hard to repress a smug smile.

He had won his bet with Flitwick; Filius had only bet that Neville would go into the bathroom with Moaning Myrtle in it, but Snape had insisted that Neville would faint.  
“Check mate!”, he murmured, unable to fully suppress a dark chuckle.

McGonagall stared at him disbelievingly. “What did you just say, Severus?!”. “Oh, um… nothing. Take care of Longbottom, will you?”  
He pushed Neville’s unconscious form to the floor and strolled along the corridor towards Flitwick’s office, his robes billowing. 

She could have sworn that she saw his shoulders shaking in laughter. Looking down at Neville (still unconscious, poor thing) lying on the floor, she tutted under her breath.

Even though Snape had rounded the corner and was out of Minerva’s sight, she could hear his loud, dark, rumbling laughter.

 

That bastard.


	7. Lemony Teaparty

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and no money is being made from this story. Just borrowed some characters ;)
> 
> A/N: And, as always, a big thanks to my beta cmmlovr!

After Snape’s departure, Draco waited until McGonagall and the levitating Neville had started heading towards the infirmary and were out of sight before daring to break out in loud laughter.  
“Well done, Master Draco.” He glanced at Lemon, glad to see it was pleased with the prank.  
Still, there was a hint of dissatisfaction - of wanting _more_ \- in its expression.  
“But there’s still room for improvement, y’know”. ‘Ah, _there it is_.’ Draco thought, sighing.

“You are aware that we can’t pull pranks every day, right?” Lemon’s eyes widened. “What?” it screamed shrilly. “Why not?” it elongated the word gratingly, “There are so many people in the castle, nobody would notice! A drowned Neville on Monday; a poisoned Scottish teacher on Tuesday; Wednesday, a reduced Flitwick –if that’s even possible; stuffed Mrs Norris on Thursday; burned Dumbledore on Friday; demolished castle on Saturday; and world domination on Sunday!” Tears of hope and anticipation shimmered in Lemon’s eyes, produced by thoughts of a better, evil world.  
Draco’s only response was a horror-struck expression flitting across his face.

Later, he wouldn’t be able to remember how he’d managed to get Lemon into his room without it chanting _drown him_ and _world domination_ the whole way down to his rooms. Somehow Lemon seemed impervious to minor spells, something Draco had unfortunately learned the hard way just as he’d _nearly_ reached the dormitories.  
Lemon had been attempting to inform the castle of its impending plot for world domination _incredibly_ loudly; so much so that is caused a suit of armour to crash to the ground with the vibrations of its voice.

Finally, Draco reached the bed and allowed himself slump onto it face down, exhausted from Lemon’s plans. Lemon seemed to have been energized, however, didn’t hesitate reprimanding him: “Noo, Master Draco! No lying down. Evil knows no pauses! Up, up!”  
It began hopping up and down to emphasise its point. “I’m no longer a hyperactive 15 year-old, Lemon. I need some time to rest!” The sound of Draco’s muffled voice shuddered in response. Lemon decided to give him some time.

After exactly two and a half seconds, it decided that that he had had _more_ than enough time. It jumped on the night table, hopped onto the bed and began to pat Draco’s head. “ _Don’t you dare touch my hair!_ ” he growled, “It takes me forty damn minutes every morning to get it look like this, so take your paws off!”  
Obedient as Lemon was, it did what Master Draco had ordered, and started to slap his cheek instead.

Draco didn’t move or make any sound.

Lemon slapped again, this time a bit harder.

Draco’s growling started to sound a bit angry now. Well, Lemon couldn’t call itself a good Lemon if it stopped after such a short amount of time because he was _angry_. With a final, well-directed, and strong smack, it finally managed to make Draco open his left eye.

“ _What_?” he hissed. “You got your fun, now be a good Lemon and bugger off! Vanish. Disappear. Go out and swim in the marsh. Take a nap with Fluffy. Find my godfather and tell him he does foolish wand-waving. I don’t care what you do, just GO AWAY!”  
‘And don’t come back for a good, long, while,’ he thought silently. Lemon smirked, shaking its yellow head.

“Oh, Master Draco,” it chuckled, “Don’t you worry, I could do all the things you’ve just suggested. But I can’t kick the bucket while doing them; I’m immortal, dumb-dumb. Now come on, stand up!”

The Slytherin hadn’t any choice but to stand up, not trusting Lemon to be by itself if he’d stayed in bed any longer. It might just come up with the idea of hitting him again, possibly on a more _delicate_ area of his body.  
Draco sighed, acknowledging that he wouldn’t be getting any rest until Lemon was satisfied. “Fine, let’s go. But we’re not doing anything too strenuous - I don’t have the energy for that. Let’s scout a target,” he replied tiredly.  
Lemon looked a bit disappointed, but still excited that its Master was finally warming to its evil ways.

He stuffed Lemon into his left pocket and made his way out of the dormitories, heading down through the portrait and into the castle in the hopes of finding some new prank to satisfy (and silence!) Lemon.

To his misfortune, Draco didn’t meet anyone he thought would make a good victim, so he decided that a walk around the Great Lake might help to clear his head.  
Shortly before he reached the great oak doors, he spotted a leaflet out of the corner of his eye, inviting the teachers and pupils to a “lovely afternoon tea party where all can come together and enjoy the warmth of tea during winter.”  
“Who comes up with this shit?” he muttered, “as if I’ve nothing better to do on a Wednesday afternoon at five than go to a _lovely_ bloody _tea party_ ”.

On seeing that it was _mandatory_ \- and organised by Dumbledore – he felt like puking.

 

Dusk was already falling when Draco stepped out of the castle. As he walked, he crossed his arms over his chest.  
Although the weather could be quite nice during the day, it was still bitterly cold at night. He followed his breath with his eyes as it rose in puffs out of his mouth, hoping that a good prank would come to him quickly.  
He really didn’t want to spend more time than necessary out in the cold. When he reached the lake and was more or less out of sight, he let Lemon hop out of his pocket onto the grass which was already mildewed due to the evening’s cold weather.

He watched Lemon run a few meters in the cold, approaching the lake quickly before sitting down at the shore. The water near the shore was already a bit frozen, which seemed to disappoint Lemon.  
“Neither warm enough to swim in nor frozen enough to skate on.” It got to its feet again, “What now, Master Draco?”

As he saw Lemon standing there innocently, a plan began to formulate itself in his mind. “We’re going to the tea party. I’ve got an idea for you.” Draco smirked at the thought. Lemon happily pressed its small hands together, waiting in excitement for its order.  
“Tell me!” It hopped up and down until Draco reached out his hand, lifted up Lemon and whispered his plan in its minute yellow ear.  
Now Lemon didn’t look really happy at all.

“Oh, that’s soo boring. _‘And then this is how we’re gonna enjoy the tea party’_ ”, it mocked him, “Really? And you want to be my Master? Do you have a shred of evil in you _at all_? Who do you wanna scare with that?”

“Watch your mouth, would you?”

“But we wanted to do something _big_! Throw Longbottom into the Great Lake and see how he’d deal with the Giant Squid!” Lemon angrily stamped its yellow foot, venting its anger.

Draco only replied with an angry look. “Do what you’re told!” he hissed. “Now get back into my pocket, we’re going back to the castle. The ground is too cold for you to walk on.” Lemon shook its head, not wanting to be stuffed into the dark pocket again.

Two minutes later, Draco made his way to the castle with Lemon sat in the space between his neck and the furry collar of his jacket. To Draco’s displeasure, Lemon had to hold onto his ear in order to avoid falling down.  
“Master Draco, my nose feels funny”.  
“What?” he murmured.  
“I don’t know. It feels weird. Just as if I’m – as if I’m g-g-gonna -” _Achoo_.  
“Yuck!” Draco immediately wiped off Lemon’s yellow phlegm from his cheek with his gloved hand.

“Great. Now I smell of lemon snot, thanks to you. That’ll make the tea party even more interesting.” Then, reprimanding Lemon, he added, “The next time you’re gonna sneeze, _don’t_ do it on my cheek, is that understood?”  
Lemon smirked again, suppressing its laughter.

Half an hour later, the tea party in the Great Hall was in full swing. Draco managed to sit as close to the staff table as possible.  
His godfather Snape watched him closely over the course of the evening. Draco was concerned that he might have begun to suspect something about Lemon, and his pranks.  
He knew that Snape was aware of so much more than he was expected to be, but the skills of a former double agent and spy were still slumbering in his body.

Draco wasn’t entirely sure of Snape’s knowledge, but he cast a disillusion charm over Lemon before sending it off to the staff table, just in case. He tried his best to follow the faint shimmer up to the table and suddenly noticed that Snape had also followed his gaze.  
The Slytherin hastily looked around in the Great Hall, trying to look as innocent as possible.

  
After a few seconds, he dared to look at the table again, seeing the faint shimmer next to Hagrid’s teacup. His eyes widened as he suddenly thought about the consequences Lemon’s actions may have.  
And, to his horror, what he’d been afraid of had already happened.

The Disillusion charm had started to wear off, and he could clearly see Lemon standing at the edge of Hagrid’s gigantic teacup, _pissing_ into it.

He was glad when Lemon finally was back at his table, and dared a glance towards Snape. To his disbelief, he could see a hint of a suppressed smirk on his godfather’s face. Only a minute later, a loud thudding from the staff table could be heard.  
Draco did everything in his power to suppress the loud laughter which was already forming in his throat when he saw Hagrid.

“Who’s gone an’ put lemon juice ‘n my cuppa’ tea? Merlin’s beard, ’M allergic!” Hagrid pat his face with his enormous hands, parts of his face already starting to swell unpleasantly.  
“What’s wrong with the tea?!” pressed Trelawney urgently, “is it…poisoned?” her usually mystical voice diluted by her own panic.  
Most of the students had heard her loud screaming, and were now stricken with terror.  
And that’s when all hell broke loose.

Pupils began screaming, frightened that they, too, had been poisoned.  
Confused yelling ensued, as students asked one another if signs of their surely approaching death could be seen.  
It took old Dumbledore quite a while to calm down the Hufflepuffs, as all other students were intelligent enough to know that “being allergic to lemons” didn’t also necessarily mean “we’re poisoned and are all going to die”.

Draco looked at his godfather again, who sat at the table and face-palmed.

All in all, everything had gone very well.


	8. No 1 and No 2 come under Lemon's spell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and no money is being made from this story. Just borrowed some characters ;)
> 
> Thanks to Amuerion and several guests who left kudos, that makes me really happy!
> 
> I have to thank my beta CMMlovr: you’re doing wonderful work! Thanks for making my stories sound so good!

After Dumbledore had finally managed to hush the Hufflepuff-induced chaos, the situation gradually dissolved.   
By now, Hagrid’s oh-so-familiar words could be heard through the Great Hall: “I should not ‘ave said tha’. _I should not ‘ave said tha_ ’.” He repeated his words over and over again, shaking his head.

After a few days, the incident in the Great Hall had more or less been forgotten by most of the students. Only some Hufflepuffs showed up at Professor Sprout’s door from time to time, needing reassurance that they were not going to die due to after-effects of poisoned tea.

Nearly a week later, Draco was reminded of his prank by someone he’d least expected to get involved.   
As he left the Transfiguration classroom and headed towards the dungeons to meet his friends, Snape crossed his path. In passing, he could have sworn he’d heard him mutter “You can do better, Draco”, but he wasn’t entirely sure.

A good week later, Hogwarts’ house elves were happy that they had finally been allowed to put tea back on the menu for the Hufflepuff table.   
Though before Draco could enjoy the renewed silence from the Hufflepuff table – their constant whispering and wild assumptions about poisoned tea was driving him nuts – he first had to survive another day with his Lemony pal. 

Draco was happy when the day drew to a close. It had taken much of his patience to get through the day with Lemon in his satchel.   
This resulted in Draco paying more attention to his bag than to his lessons (which wasn’t really a new thing, but still…).   
By his third lesson, Lemon had caught Draco between its teeth several times.   
He was really relieved when he heard a _plop_ after his last lesson as this meant that Lemon had disappeared somewhere _away from him_. He never knew how long and where Lemon would go, but today he didn’t really care.

After dinner, Draco decided to be a good student today and do his homework, for a change.   
Well, some divine power seemed to have decided differently.

“What’ya doooiin’?” Lemon appeared at the edge of Draco’s Charms book on his desk, his apparition followed by a tiny plop.   
“Lemon, as long as I am your Master, and as long as you plop in and out of my room, you will not only address me correctly, but also pay attention to your language. No need to fall into a slang, we’re not chavs or common muggles, do you understand?” “Sometimes it’s really easy to notice that Snape’s your godfather, you just sound like him”.

Lemon peeked at Draco as it started to peel away the book’s front cover. “Charms, now there’s a useful subject for pranks,” it nodded approvingly, trying so hard not to appear excited by pretending to study the desk lamp _very_ thoroughly.   
Draco looked up from his homework. “How do you go from ‘talking like my godfather’ to ‘what’s our next prank’?”   
“Never mind that,” Lemon replied. “You would need more than two more brain cells to understand what I say,” it muttered.

“What did you just say?”

“Nothing, Master Draco, _absolutely nuffin’_ ”.

“Now stop that peeling, I need that book for later. I’ve got homework to do, so be a good Lemon and wait till I’ve finished,” he grumbled.

Lemon might have been the master of evil, but it was definitely not the ruler of boredom. It was capable of sitting silently for over four minutes, but reached its limit shortly thereafter.   
It stood up, inspecting Draco thoroughly.   
As he didn’t show any reaction, Lemon sighed, conjuring a miniature black hat on its head.   
Draco was still completely engrossed in his homework, when a slight humming reached his ears.

“ _People always told me, be careful of what you do, hmmhmmm… Tadadaaa-ah, forgot the lyrics, hmhmmmm…_ ”

Draco looked up, only to see Lemon moonwalking on his charms book, still humming. He put his head on his right hand, his amused gaze following Lemon’s performance.

“ _Billie Jean is not my lover, She’s just a girl who claims that I am the one…_ ”   
Without stopping its moonwalk, Lemon addressed Draco.   
“You do know that Twiddle-Dee and Twiddle-Dum are looking for you?”

Draco’s eyes widened. “And you didn’t think to tell me that earlier? Grab your hat, we’re leaving.”   
The Slytherin hastily stood up, grabbed Lemon and promptly forgot that he’d been working at all.

* * *

Ten seconds later, he was wandering through the castle, doing his best to escape Crabbe and Goyle. He was doing his best to avoid them this year, simply because he felt as if his ears might start bleeding if he had to listen to their blabbering more than twenty minutes.   
Just as he’d reached the ground floor (Draco assumed that his former sidekicks wouldn’t go as far away from the dungeons just to find him) he suddenly heard the voices which would surely be the death of him if he didn’t manage to escape them quickly.

“But ‘e must be _here_ , Goyle, I _saw_ ‘im!”   
“Don’t care if ya saw ‘im or not, I just need ‘im to do me potions ‘omework.” Then, muttering to himself, “Don’ need no bloody potions anyway, ain’t goin’ to be no pharmacist, is I?”   
“Errr, Goyle…What’chu say?”   
“Ain’t none of your business is it?”

They were so absorbed in their warped conversation, the two walked right past Draco as he hid behind a suit of armour. Just as they disappeared from sight, Minerva I’ll-fail-you-at-Transfiguration-if-you-don’t-finish-your-homework-Mr.Malfoy-McGonagall, head of Gryffindor house, turned the corner towards him.   
And _of course_ she immediately spotted Draco standing behind the suit of armour.

“ _Mister_ Malfoy, _what_ are you doing there?” Her high pitch was accompanied by a suspicious glare directed at Draco.

‘ _Perhaps I was mistaken about my cause of death_ ,’ he thought, sighing, _‘it’ll definitely be her._ ’

He spent the next few minutes doing his best to explain why he’d been hiding to McGonagall, but couldn’t quite convince her of his innocence.

“Messrs. Crabbe and Goyle were out of the common room voluntarily?” she asked disbelievingly, “are you sure you didn’t hit your head on the suit of armour, Mister Malfoy?”   
She paused, sizing him up.

“Sounds to me like you’re up to something,” she added, suspiciously.

Draco didn’t really care at that moment if McGonagall thought he was addled in some way, he just wanted to get rid of her. So, he did his best by nodding after her every sentence.   
He didn’t want to risk Lemon peering out of his pocket, it just went to sleep ten minutes ago, and he _really_ didn’t want the first personal encounter with Lemon and McGonagall to be an unprepared and _spontaneous_ situation.   
Lemon meeting McGonagall needed _planning_ and careful consideration.

Having been chastised by his Transfiguration teacher for the crime of _hiding_ , Draco managed to extricate himself from the uncomfortable situation before heading to the second floor.

As luck would have it (and clearly, luck was _not_ on his side today), he heard Thing 1 and Thing 2 from the other end of the corridor.   
He knew he had to act quickly while they were still out of sight.   
Draco patted his pocket gently, jostling the slumbering Lemon.

“Lemon” he whispered. “Lemon, wake up. I have an order!”

Lemon’s applauding could be heard even before it came into view. “Pray tell, Master Draco.”   
Two small black eyes beamed excitedly at him from his pocket.

“Dumb and Dumber are on their way; I want you to demonstrate your acrobatic skills and give them a bit of a scare.”   
Lemon gave him its best puppy eyes, “Compromise: I’ll scare the living dayli-”

“No. I said ‘a bit’”.

A sigh could be heard from Lemon. “Okay, okay, let me out, Master Draco”.

He helped Lemon onto the floor, before hiding himself behind a suit of armour once more.

‘ _What would I do without all these suits of armour?_ ’ he thought.

The thought gave him a brilliant idea. He smirked and rubbed his hands together; Lemon would _love_ this plan.   
But…one step at a time.

Draco watched as Lemon slowly somersaulted down the corridor.   
Just as Crabbe and Goyle rounded the corner, Lemon stopped.   
It quickly transformed itself into a tiny lemon cupcake before lying still on the ground.

“Oi, watch out!” Crabbe grasped Goyle’s arm, preventing him from stepping on Lemon, “Y’almost stepped on that, you did,” he said, indicating the cupcake.   
“Oh.” _‘Goyle, eloquent as ever,’_ thought Draco, smirking.   
He knew that they wouldn’t question the random appearance of a cupcake on a floor; this would going to be _so good_.

Crabbe picked up Lemon-Cupcake, smiling happily at Goyle. “Someone musta’ dropped it. Let’s share, it looks _delicious_!”

Just as Crabbe had sunk his front teeth into the cupcake, it squeaked loudly, “OI! What in Merlin’s name do you think you’re doing?! Why are you biting my _bum_?”

Two pairs of eyes stared at Lemon, wide with fear. Crabbe and Goyle’s mouths hung open in disbelief, frozen in shock.   
“Don’t look at me that way,” Lemon scolded, “ _I’m_ the _victim_ here!” it rubbed its bum angrily.   
“But ‘chu were a cake?”   
“Dumb question, Goyle. This is a clear case of cannibalism!” Crabbe blinked stupidly before hesitantly stating: “But you’re not human.”

Lemon shot him an angry look.   
“Then that’s fruitibalism! Be that as it may-” bored of the conversation already, Lemon decided to make short work of them.

Snapping its fingers, it implemented a little charm and let the magic do the work.   
Then it spread out its arms, put on small aviator goggles, and jumped from Crabbe’s extended hand.   
Draco could hear Lemon screaming “ _Geronimooo_ ” while jumping, and he tried his best to muffle his laughter.

Lemon was keen on dramatic exits; its effect on Crabbe and Goyle, however, was _priceless_.

Seconds later, he felt motion in his left pocket, and knew that Lemon had returned. He took a last amused glance at the both students, then made his way back to his dormitory.

* * *

Draco and Lemon had just reached the dormitories when all hell broke loose.   
Although there were quite a few thick stone walls between himself and Crabbe and Goyle, he could hear everything as it happened to them.

“What on earth are you both doing?!” _‘Seems that McGonagall has just found them,’_ Smirked Draco. Lemon looked happier than it had been, but still somewhat disappointed.

“Well?! Is that it?!” Lemon shrieked gratingly, “She’s just telling them off! I thought she’d do more,” it pouted.  
Draco let himself fall onto his bed, his arms coming up behind his head as he crossed his legs.

“Wait for it, there _will_ be more. Just wait for that trigger word,” he snickered.

“Crabbe - Goyle, explain yourselves _this instant_!”   
McGonagall’s voice reverberated throughout the castle as she forgot all formalities.

“ _Why_ are you wearing pink ballet tutus? And tights? _And for God’s sake, stop doing those bloody pirouettes_!”   
A short silence ensued, followed once more by McGonagall’s voice, “Stop mumbling, Mr. Goyle, and speak _up_!”

_Silence, again._

“What do you mean a cupcake made you do it?”

Draco looked at Lemon, both laughing excitedly.

“You see? There’s the trigger word!”

“Have you gone _mad_? Oh, _oh_! Mr. Goyle, _why_ are you _singing_?”

McGonagall seemed to be on the verge of despair.   
Apparently, Snape had been attempting to pass by unnoticed, because McGonagall called out: “Severus! Come here this _instant_ , your students have lost it, and I’m not dealing with it. They’re in your house, and I’m too old for this shit.”

“Uh-oh… Snape? Well, this has gotten interesting.”   
Draco wiped tears of laughter from his eyes.

Snape returned; his deeper tones audible now. “Forget Goyle, he’s been bewitched. Just leave them, Minerva. Trying to talk to them won’t help – it might make it worse, if anything.”

His reassurance was lost on McGonagall, who seemed determined to get an answer out of Crabbe about the cupcake incident.   
However, this only caused the charm to take effect again.

“What. Are. You. Doing?”

“Hip-Hop, Professor.”

“It seems, Minerva, that cupcake it some kind of trigger word. I wonder who would do such a thing,” he drawled lazily, trying (and failing) to stifle his amusement.

“Severus Snape, do you think this is _funny_? This is serious!”

Between the pauses of McGonagall’s irritated screeching and Snape’s ill-concealed chuckles, Goyle’s dulcet tones in opera and Crabbe’s beatboxing could be heard.

Draco was now laughing so hard that he thought he was going to die.   
He couldn’t get rid of the image of a beatboxing Crabbe, dancing hip-hop in a pink tutu.

“Enough of this nonsense!” the sound of a smack resounded in the corridor.

“No need to slap the back of their heads, Minerva. We might as well just wait until the spell wears off.”

“And what?” McGonagall seethed, “Do _nothing_?”

“Calm down. Perhaps they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’ll take them to my office. Good evening, Minerva”.   
Several sounds followed, leading Draco to think that his godfather must have been physically pushing Crabbe and Goyle down to his office.

“One of these days, I’m just going to _quit_ ,” muttered McGonagall darkly, “Crabbe and Goyle in tutus is an image I never needed to see.”

 

She shuddered, considering the possibility of obliviating herself just to remove the unpleasant image from her mind as she headed back towards her office.


	9. Well, hello Mrs Norris

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and no money is being made from this story. Just borrowed some characters ;)
> 
> Amuerion, this chapter is dedicated to you! Thanks for my wonderful profile picture!  
> A/N: And again, CMemlovr: best beta!

It seemed that Lemon was better satisfied now, and hadn’t bothered Draco for the next three weeks. February had drifted into March a few days prior, and Draco had somehow managed to control Lemon slightly more.   
At least he was now able to do his homework – well, at least in the rare cases _when_ he did it- for more than twelve minutes.

One particular evening, Draco had been left fuming on his bed as Lemon went for a jaunt for a few hours.   
Enraged, Draco had taken a sip of pumpkin juice before flinging his goblet into the corner.

“Damn bloody cat, I’m gonna mix Arsenic into her food the next time I get the chance!” he cursed loudly.

 _Plop_.   
“You summoned, Master Draco?” Draco’s brows rose, his eyes narrowing. Lemon stood in front of him on his bedside table, waiting for its Master’s command.   
“No, I didn’t freakin’ call you,” he huffed, “nor did I _summon_ Mrs. Norris before she decided to scratch the shit out of me!”

Lemon took its time to inspect its Master more closely. It had never seen him so angry.

Draco had rolled up the sleeves of his shirt- or at least what was left of them.   
They were shredded to bits, along with his trousers.   
Bloodied gashes graced both of his arms, blood dripping down both his arms and his legs.

“What did you _do_ , Master Draco?” Lemon looked shocked.   
“Bless, you actually care about me, eh?”

Lemon waved away Draco’s misinterpretation of its comment and interjected: “And why did you do it without _me_? You have an evil Lemon at your beck and call and you won’t even let me participate!”   
Lemon stamped its tiny left foot to emphasize its anger, succeeding only in looking like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

‘ _So, that wasn’t sympathy from Lemon, then,_ ’ thought Draco. _‘I can’t do anything to Mrs. Norris alone or Filch would guess it was me immediately. I need Lemon to do it for me without necessarily_ ordering _it to do it…_ ’

“Oi! I’m _injured_ here and you’re getting your knickers in a twist over being left out! I was _brutally_ attacked by a monstrous ball of fur with red eyes. I might not make it past tonight,” murmured Draco, hanging his head helplessly.

His ploy to inspire Lemon to action seemed to work, as moments later he sensed a light patting on his right thigh.

“ _No,_ Master Draco,” Lemon soothed, “Don’t you worry; whatever did this to you will pay for it bitterly. I serve at your pleasure, and nobody hurts my Master!” It squeaked chivalrously.

A little while later, Draco’s wounds had healed, but anger was still rumbling through his body.   
Lemon began planning – as evil a plan as possible – and all _he_ had to do was nod at the appropriate moments to guide Lemon in the right direction.   
He didn’t want the cat to die, after all.

In all honesty, Mrs. Norris’ death was really one of the better proposals Lemon had made, its other suggestions had included:

\- Being drowned (“But slowly, she must suffer!”)

\- Hanging stuffed from the ceiling in Filch’s office (“ _That_ will scare him”)

\- Having all paws glued together (“She would make a great furry football!”)

\- Being tied to a drone (“You could use her as a flying spy, Master Draco!”)

When Lemon saw its Master’s confusion about the word “drone” (‘ _Wizards_ ,’ it thought, shaking its head), it just waved its hand, and said angrily: “Fine then! Come up with your own revenge plot!”

It sat at the edge of the bedside table with its arms crossed, and Draco knew that Lemon must have been in one hell of a bad mood.

“If I followed your suggestions, Mrs Norris would not survive any of the scenarios!” Draco groused, throwing up his hands angrily, “She should suffer, not _die_!”   
“Well, she _would_ suffer _before_ dying, wouldn’t she?” Lemon peeked at him from beneath its eyelashes.

The Slytherin tilted his head to one side, smirking.

Where was Lemon during Voldemort’s era? The two of them would have gained control of the wizarding world _far_ earlier.   
It was equally likely that Lemon would have first made fun of the Dark Lord’s lack of a nose, and then helped the wizarding world to get rid of Voldemort so that _it_ could have world domination.

After thinking about it for a moment, Draco felt sure that Lemon would have pulled out every nose pun it could’ve come up with just to see how far it could push.   
Yes, his Lemon definitely knew no boundaries.   
And speaking of bodily shortages…

“What if we helped Mrs. Norris to shed her fur?” Draco smirked, interrupting Lemon in its torrent of words.

Lemon stopped, its tiny mouth still wide open. “It’s a starting point, but there is definitely room for improvement. Allow me.”

 _Plop_.

Malfoy found himself sitting alone in his room, having no idea where exactly Lemon had gone and not liking it one bit.   
He hoped that it wouldn’t end too badly for Mrs. Norris.

Later on that evening- Lemon had finally returned to his dorm – the two decided to wander through the castle to clear their heads and go for a walk.

When Lemon had appeared again, Draco had immediately tried to find out exactly what Lemon had done, but without success.   
It just clapped its hands, declaring that a walk was in order.

They’d passed a few suits of armor before they heard a shrill, loud voice yelling something unintelligible.

“My cat! My _CAT_!”

Again, unintelligible sounds, accompanied by an unhealthy sounding sniffle of some kind.

Draco peeked at Lemon in his pocket, and it smirked back at him.   
“I think Filch just found his cat.”  
“What did you _do_ to her?” he muttered. “Wait for it, Master Draco, just wait for it”

A second voice entered the mix, and Draco easily identified it as his godfather’s.

“What’s going on here, Filch? Why are you –?” Snape fell into a stunned silence, and Draco was pleased to have surprised his godfather for possibly the first and last time.

“Why is Mrs. Norris bald?” Snape’s attempt to stifle his amusement was futile.

“She is not _bald!_ Look what those brutes have done to her!”

In the meantime, Lemon had climbed out of Draco’s pocket, and made itself comfortable on his shoulder, leaning towards his ear: “You do remember that Filch was very much in love with Umbridge?”

Draco nodded.

“Well, he visited her last summer”

“What?” Draco yelled.

“Pscht, Master Draco, not so loud! The poor thing has been trying to hide his affection for Umbridge, knowing that the students and teachers would only hate him more for it,” said Lemon, mock-sympathetically.   
“Now, some pupils have already tried to get revenge for how he acted while Umbridge was here – can you imagine how much worse it would be if anyone were to find out about his visit?” Lemon grinned wickedly.

“You’re about to find out.”

 

Meanwhile, several loud screams and curses hit their ears.

“Now _look_ at her, Snape! Look at my Mrs. Norris!”

“Oh calm down, Squib. It’s not that terrible.”

“ _Look at her!_ ”

Silence.

 

“Look closer!”

Dark chuckles vibrated through the air.  
“Did they really shave your cat just enough to write a _message_?” Snape sounded quite amused.

“Read it! _Read it!_ ” The demanding shrill voice of Filch drowned everything.

“Don’t give me that bloody thing! I don’t want to hold it!”

“READ IT!”

Snape seemed to give up, as seconds later, Draco heard him reading aloud what he assumed was the message Lemon had sheared into Mrs. Norris’ fur.

 

“What _did you do_?” Lemon smirked, hopping up and down on his shoulder.

“Wait for it!”

 

“ _I know what_ ” his godfather began.

Silence again.

“Filch, why are you wasting my time with this nonsense? I’ve no time to be reading your cat.”

“This isn’t funny, Snape! Turn her over, you’ll see.”   
“What?”

“Turn her, you heard me right”

“Right, the sentence continues to say: “you did”.”

Snape didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry to read what was written in Mrs. Norris’ fur. In general, he rather seemed to be enjoying the situation.

“So they wrote “you did” on her stomach”   
“Turn her around to her other side!”

“ _Last summer_. Ha, they wrote _I know what you did last summer_ on your cat.” Snape summarized the confusing situation.

A loud _meow_ was heard; apparently Snape had had enough of holding Mrs. Norris and had simply thrown her to the ground.

 

“And what did you do last summer to prompt this, Filch? It must have been important for the students to shave it into your cat.”

“I-i-i... uh-” stammered Filch.


	10. Saint Potter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and no money is being made from this story. Just borrowed some characters ;)
> 
> A/N: A venerable, capitalized Thanks to CMemlovr. You track down every mistake in my sentences, no matter how small, and manage to undo every knot in my plot <3 *bows*  
> Thanks to all of you who favourite and follow my story, this means a lot!

Draco mentally thanked Lemon for its great idea of having a shaven Mrs Norris with a furry message running through the castle.   
He let Lemon in on some of the student’s thoughts about Filch after the accident, and when Lemon heard how much Filch was hated by the people in the castle, it just smirked and commented “Payback’s a bitch”.

To Lemon’s great delight, students had started to notice what had happened to Mrs Norris, causing rumors to spread as fast as ever through the castle.   
During meals, Draco could even see the teachers whispering hastily about something; no doubt it was about Mrs- _not-so-furry_ -Norris.   
Of course the teachers tried their best to hide their whispered gossiping, but nevertheless, Draco picked up a few scraps of murmured conversation.

Mostly it was speculation about who had had the great idea, and what _exactly_ Filch had done last summer.

Rumors varied vastly:   
_“A former friend of my granduncle’s mate saw him buying pink medieval instruments of torture”_  
“ _Maybe he went for some private lessons. I heard he never gave up the idea of finally becoming a proper wizard?”_   
And Draco’s personal favorite… _“Maybe he let something… do... You know? I mean, come on, doesn’t his hair look… fuller??”_

The Slytherin knew it would only be a matter of time until somebody figured out the link between the furry message and Filch’s affection for Umbridge.   
And that moment would mark the opening of the doors to Filch’s personal hell.   
Attacking his cat had been the first step, and it would encourage other students to wreak their own revenge.

Draco realized that his pal Lemon had taken its job quite seriously; they were already halfway through March, and Mrs. Norris was still half-bald.

“Just say the word,” Lemon reminded him breathlessly during one of Malfoy’s rare homework sessions.   
He looked up from his potions essay, finding Lemon trying hard to do handstands against a small pile of books. It never really managed to remain still during the handstand, and seconds later its tiny feet would bring Lemon back to the table top.

“You seem to like trigger words,” observed Draco, smirking while he leaned his head against his left arm.

To his surprise, Lemon managed to keep a handstand for a split-second, celebrating with a happy _woohoo_!   
“Kind of… _woah_.” Lemon had been too preoccupied with its own success, and forgot to focus on its balance.   
As it went down, it scraped against the books, finally landing in an uncomfortable position without moving.

Malfoy raised his head.  
"Are you okay? Your landing looked quite… unprofessional”.

A folded up Lemon peeked at him, obviously quite pissed off. “Oh, shut your mou- I mean, pssssh, Master Draco!”   
Lemon had straightened up in the meantime, and was now leaning against the book pile, rubbing its elbow. 

“But yes, you heard right. Anyone can say the trigger word, and Mrs. Norris’ will grow back. It won’t be immediately, but definitely within a month… or two.”   
Draco pricked Lemon with the tip of his quill, leaving small blue dots on its yellow stomach.   
“And what is the trigger word?” Lemon tried to repel the quill, ending with blue ink all over its hands.

“Oh _stop_ it!”. It gave the quill a good smack, causing it to break. “Master Draco,” it added.   
“Oh don’t you “Master Draco” me, this was my last quill!”   
“What about a simple _reparo_?” Lemon glanced at him, obviously trying to hide an evil smirk.   
But neither a first nor a second _reparo_ changed anything about the situation, and the Slytherin shot an angry glance at Lemon.

“What did you do that a simple _reparo_ doesn’t work? You would’ve known beforehand, wouldn’t you?”   
“Things done by Big Evil cannot be repaired with reparo. So apparently, I am evil enough. At least for the moment.”   
Lemon seemed satisfied at the thought of being just evil _enough_.

Draco muttered under his breath, “At least one good thing” he thought. “I’ll take what I can get, so long as Lemon’s quiet…”

“But,” Lemon’s voice rang shrilly, elongating the ‘but’ in a way that made Draco immediately feel uncomfortable.   
‘ _Oh no, here it comes. Lemony is never really satisfied_.’   
“…back on topic, Master Draco! As a very, very wise being said some time ago: ‘Up, up, evil knows no pauses!’”

Draco rolled his eyes at Lemon. “Don’t try to make that sound better than it was! You said that, and it was just a few weeks ago.”   
He paused before adding, “Why don’t we just relaaax, and do nothi-”

“LET’S GO FOR CROOKSHANKS!”

“Hrmpf!”

 

Twenty minutes later, Draco and his zesty servant were off again, touring the castle as they usually did.   
“So, my pocket-sized Lemon friend, what _about_ _Crookshanks ?”_   
“Hm. He’s already crooked. But he still deserved to suffer.”   
Lemon’s muffled voice could just be heard from out of Draco’s pocket.

He grinned, then stopped. “Wait, what? What do you mean by “it _deserved_ to suffer”?”

No answer from Lemon.

  
The Slytherin put his hand in his pocket, trying to catch Lemon without getting his fingers bitten.   
Finally, he succeeded, and held a squirming Lemon in his hands.

“Answer, Lemon!” Lemon tried its best to look innocent, but failed entirely. “Have you looked closely at Crookshanks recently? His face looks a little, uh, _different_.”   
Lemon suddenly seemed to be _very_ interested in Draco’s fingernails.

At first, Draco read this as shame, or embarrassment, but on closer inspection, he saw that Lemon was doing its best to hold back laughter.

“Crookshanks’s face wasn’t always so flat. Rumour has it that the _poor_ cat’s face made contact with a fast flying brick.”   
Lemon peeked at its Master who raised an eyebrow in a Snape-like manner.   
“Rumour, eh?” Lemon answered with an evil smirk, and dropped the subject.

A few days later, Draco had finally told Lemon about its actual purpose – summoning it in order to frighten Harry.

“Well, Master Draco, what do you have in mind?”   
“He has a nice, pretty scar, doesn’t he, Lemon?” Lemon rubbed its hands, its tiny black eyes sparkling with excited anticipation.   
“I think I’m gonna like this, Master Draco. What can I do for you with my magic?”

For two days, Harry Potter wondered why so many people (more than usual, at any rate) seemed to be staring at him.   
Not that it was anything new for him, or that it bothered him.

But normally when people stared, it was because:

a) They were too shy to ask for an autograph

b) They were girls who got flustered the minute he looked back at them.

c) The person was Hermione, and she was angry with him and Ron for ignoring her accurately written revision plans.

d) The person was Colin Creevey, and he had nothing better to do, apparently.

 

Having come to the conclusion that none of these people fit in any of these categories – except for the girls, Harry noticed proudly – he still didn’t quite understand.

It had really started to confuse him, especially since more and more people had actually started _to point at him_ as the days had progressed, whispering something amongst themselves as they did.

The last lesson of his day was divination, and Draco couldn’t wait to see how Lemon had interpreted his suggestion for Saint Potter.

When he made his way into the classroom, he heard the same whispers that he’d heard a dozen times that day:

 _“Have you seen his face?” “Maybe it’s a joke?” “Maybe it’s part of his new style. Whatever it is, I’ll follow. He’s so_ cute _!!”_

“Potter,” he greeted Harry. Despite his dislike for him, or perhaps because of his dislike, he was still able to amuse himself by pranking him.

“What?” asked Potter, his brows knit in confusion.

“Everything alright, Potter?”  
A befuddled Harry looked back at him.

“Why?” Draco pointed at Harry’s scar, no longer a lightning bolt, but a question mark.

“You look a bit puzzled is all,” replied Draco innocently before taking his seat.


	11. Angry Lemon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and no money is being made from this story. Just borrowed some characters ;)
> 
> A/N: Thanks to cmmlovr who is everything I could wish for as a beta.

Rumours about Potter’s scar spread faster and far more intensely than those about Mrs. Norris (who was still half-bald, by the way…).   
The Gryffindor had had a tough couple of days, as neither Madame Pomfrey nor Professor Flitwick had been able to change the shape of his scar back to normal from the damn question mark currently adorning his forehead. 

Harry had rejoiced at the news that Professors McGonagall and Snape had found an old spell that could get rid of his, admittedly embarrassing, problem.   
Ron had taken every chance to make oh-so-funny jokes (which were neither really innovative nor funny at all) about Harry’s scar; even Hermione couldn’t suppress her giggles and sideways glances.

What nobody knew – and also would never have suspected- was Snape’s reaction.   
He had been following Draco and Lemon’s actions from day one – since he’d found them in the girls’ lavatory, in fact. 

What first began as quite poor pranks (and received reactions ranging between face palms and thoughts such as “You can do better, Draco, that’s _embarrassing_!), had developed into silent amusement and finally, laughing outright in front of Minerva (even Snape had to admit that Crabbe and Goyle had looked ridiculous).

As time went by, and the pranks continued, the potions master had enjoyed following their progress as a spectator more and more.   
In fact, he had grown quite fond of the tiny citrus fruit, starting to think of further possibilities of its evil-humorous potential.

Snape was looking forward to their next strike, as he was fairly certain of who the next lucky soul to meet Lemon would be.   
As for now, he was probably safer than anyone else in the castle, since he knew that not even Lemon would dare to disturb his classes or prank him.

When he first spotted Potter’s new scar, he had had to control himself not to burst out into loud laughter.   
Snape had to admit that he’d underestimated Draco and Lemon’s potential.   
He thought of rewarding his godson with some of his favourite ink from Knockturn Alley (owing to its unique resemblance to the Slytherin colours, it was rather expensive and hard to come by) for his work.

It had taken two hours of Minerva’s best wand-work to finally get rid of the question mark, the old lightning bolt gracing his forehead once more.

Lemony had made its annoyance about Potter being rid of the question mark so easily _explicitly_ clear to its Master.

  
It had taken Draco what felt like _ages_ to rebuild his dormitory after Lemon had unleashed a scream that could have competed with a Banshee’s.  
After stamping on its tiny foot, _burning_ with anger, Lemon snapped its fingers and disappeared with a loud _puff_.  
It left behind a shocked Slytherin to deal with his demolished room.

After a day or two, Lemon seemed to have finally calmed down, as it returned to keep Draco company again.   
The Slytherin made the mistake of asking Lemon if it had finally calmed down, only for Lemon to kindly show him that its “knickers were still very much in a twist, _thankyouverymuch_ ”.

After getting a good smack on the back of his head, Malfoy had to command Lemon to stand still – although it was shivering due to anger- and let it apologize for the smack.

He had learned that, when Lemon’s murderous instincts were rampant as they were now, it was necessary for him to give exact and explicit commands.   
Still, he enjoyed watching Lemon apologize, formally and in great detail, regardless of the homicidal expression on its face.

Draco smirked, mentally patting himself on the back.

“You know, Lemon, since we already are quite good at transfiguration - excellent work, by the way, with Dumb and Dumber, and Saint Potter - I suggest we stay on course.   
You know that Professor McGonagall is an animagus?”

These words piqued Lemon’s interest, so it took its seat on Malfoy’s bedside table as it always did, and leaned against an unopened bottle of green ink.

“Go on, Master Draco.” There was a clearly audible note of fury still present in Lemon’s tone, and its body vibrated with anger.   
“Stop that, Lemony. If you make that ink bottle break with your stupid quivering, you’ll pay for it, and my father will hear about it. It was a gift.”

“From whom?” Lemon had turned around in the meantime, inspecting the dark ink.

“None of your business, you cheeky thing,” he smirked.   
“Actually, I don’t know who sent it, and the note that came with it just said ‘Greet Minerva’.”

“Ah, it’s ‘Special Fast Drying Slytherin-Mossy-Green Ink No. 87’. Good quality, too.” Lemon remarked.   
Draco looked at it strangely, obviously surprised (a rare occurrence), but decided not to comment on it.

“Right, well I need you to calm down enough for me to explain what we’re going to do.”

 

The mischievous Slytherin was quite glad that all he had to do was command his citrusy servant, and pull the strings in the background while Lemon did the hard work in executing its Master’s plans.   
All he had to do this time was channel Lemony’s anger towards McGonagall into a prank on her.

He hoped everything would work out as well as he had imagined.   
If this succeeded, they would have managed to pull a prank on Professor McKittyCat - a transfiguration teacher, no less - herself.

Two days after that conversation, Malfoy finally allowed Lemon to go after Minerva.   
Suffice to say, Lemon was _not_ happy about the holdup.  
In fact, his zesty friend took its time coming back, and Draco had started to wonder where it was.

The Slytherin had already gotten into bed when his zesty friend joined him, taking its place on the bedside table.   
A small duvet and an even tinier pillow lay next to his lamp on the spacious desk.

“How did it go?” Malfoy asked eagerly.   
He turned on one side, resting his head on his right arm.

“Took a bit of effort ‘cos it was a pretty complex spell, but _of course_ I managed it,” said Lemon slowly, obviously exhausted from following orders.

Draco extinguished the candles before asking, “Why did it exhaust you so much? I’ve never seen you so tired.”

“Hm-wha?” came the slurred answer.

Malfoy cleared his throat.   
“Why weren’t you so tired after all my other commands?”

“I had to use far more complex magic for this. The two twits didn’t require much more than basic charms work and good timing.  
But with this – I needed to be sure that she wouldn’t be able to find any loopholes in my incantations.   
McCatface shouldn’t be able to find any ways of countering the transfiguration, either” Lemon stressed its exhaustion with a tired sigh.

“And although I’m immortal, my magic is not inexhaustible. Have you never considered why I _must_ accept and carry out direct orders from you as my Master?”

A longer pause followed.

“I always thought it just works the same way as with house elves,” replied Draco pensively.

“Slightly different,” the reply came immediately.

 

“So what’s different? Both house elves and you cannot avoid direct commands.”

“Goodness, Master Draco. You live in a manor with dark objects all around you, and yet you know absolutely nothing about anything.”   
The ridicule in Lemon’s tone was clearly audible.   
Draco rolled his eyes, noting that Lemon took far too many liberties for something below him in the social hierarchy.

“Don’t roll your eyes, Master Draco.”

He gasped.   
“ _How_ do you always know everything? It’s dark in here, and it’s not like that rolling one’s eyes makes a sound or-“ 

“It doesn’t change the fact that you grew up with lots of evil around you, and still you don’t know much about it.”   
Lemon interrupted him unimpressed.

“And oh, _don’t_ tell me about the Vanishing Cabinet. You brought a _cupboard_ to school. A cupboard with mainly _neutral_ energy. Neither dark nor light.”

Malfoy already wanted to start explaining Lemon that it was _indeed_ a dark object, as it had helped the Death Eaters to enter Hogwarts, which, by the way, was one of the most stupid and horrific things he’d ever done.

But again, Lemon was quicker.   
“True, you used it for evil, but if you’d listened to your professors, you’d have known that it was used to _escape_ the Death Eaters, too.   
So you see: it has neither dark nor light energy. Master Draco, you think too generally, so you miss the smaller details.”

“ _I do not_.”

“You so do.”

Silence.

Then Lemon’s high voice added, “Master Draco”.

 

“I don’t!” he protested.

“Pray tell, Master”

“I look at small things all the time! I’m looking at _you,_ aren’t I?”

“Hrmpf.”

Draco could nearly see Lemon’s expression and posture now, obviously in a huff.   
“So, my zesty friend, would you now care to enlighten me? Why did the enchantment on McGonagall exhaust you?”

A little snort was heard, followed by Lemon’s voice.

“When house elves get a command, they’ll carry out the order because it’s in their nature.   
They would give their lives for you. Some willingly, some not.  
Those who’d do it willingly do so out of the deepest and most humble loyalty.”

“And those who don’t?” The Slytherin found himself suddenly awake, his previous tiredness fading.   
This was _really_ interesting.   
“I thought they had to do it because it’s their _job_ , end of it.”

“It is, indeed. But there are those who don’t do their job willingly, but because it is in their blood; it’s in the nature of such a creature.   
It kind of works like the _Imperius_ , although there are little chances to break a direct command.” 

Lemon paused before asking, “Do you remember losing your house-elf, Dobby?”

“Mhm. Wait- how did you know that? Oh, no, don’t tell me – you just _do_.”

“The connection between him and your family – but particularly your father – was too weak. Sometimes that can happen, y’know?”

The Slytherin rolled onto his stomach, turning his head to face his bedside table on the left.   
“So you’re telling me that he wouldn’t have gone against his orders if someone else in the family had given them?”

“It’s possible, yes. Or, at least, more likely than when your father gave the order.   
But we’re digressing.   
Now, house elves simply _have_ to do it. But I’m not an elf.

It is not in my nature to serve. If Potter were to try commanding me, it would only work on the condition that I wanted to complete his command.”

 

“But why do you follow my commands? At least, some of them?”

Malfoy could hear a slight patting, knowing that his lemony friend just plumped up its pillow.

“You summoned me,” it replied simply, “It would have also worked if you’d had some immense power.”

“Over what?”

“Everything”

“Could Dumbledore command you?”

“No. He’s too good; there needs to be some part of you that is really evil, or it won’t work.   
You had the Dark Mark, and that was apparently enough evil in order to become my Master.   
But you’re not an evil person, unfortunately. Just look at our pranks: they could’ve been _so much eviler_.

“But back on subject: your plan for McGonagall wore me out because a direct order such as yours represses my magic to do your bidding.   
Not only that, but I was forced to do quite complex magic that wasn’t even very evil. I’m not well-practiced in light magic, and so that too takes its toll on my magic.”

“So I always take away some of your evil magic when I command you to carry out _funny_ pranks?” 

Lemon sighed. “So many questions, Master Draco, and _I_   want to sleep.”

It sighed again.

“No, it doesn’t always affect my magic. But sometimes, it dampens it a bit. This can be the case when you _forbid_ me to do a more evil version of a prank.   
And today, I could’ve done a really bad version of what you wanted me to do. But, because your order and my nature as a demon were at such odds, my magic was drained.   
Not much, but still very noticeable.

And now go back to sleep, I feel as if I just read one of the most boring dialogues of a play _ever_.”

“Night, Lemony”

“Nighty-night, Master Draco. Evil dreams”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Harry Potter universe and no money is being made from this story. Just borrowed some characters ;)
> 
> A/N: Thanks to CMemlovr who is everything I could wish for as a beta. You did an amazing job with this story, and I hope I could amuse you with my comments from time to time (which was like the most fun in the whole story…) ;)
> 
> And of course a big thanks to all the people that give credit to this story with kudos and comments! :)   
> That means a lot to me.

After a night filled with evil dreams (apparently Lemon’s magic hold over him was still strong enough to have a real impact on his dreams), Draco rolled onto his stomach and sleepily opened one eye.  
Lemon’s bed had been neatly folded.

The sound of moaning, interrupted by unhealthy-sounding groans – reached the Slytherin’s ears.  
It took him some time to wake up enough to sit up in bed.  
When he did, he was faced with the sight of Lemon doing something… _interesting_ , as usual.

“Lemony, _what_ are you _doing_?” Half-asleep and sitting cross-legged on his bed, Draco rubbed his eyes and yawned.

“My fitness program, Master Draco.  
One day’s for dancing-“ “ _Hence the Michael Jackson impression,_ ” Malfoy thought. “- one day’s for balance training – I like to do handstands for that.  
And today is overall fitness, which should explain the push-ups and squats.”  
Draco let the topic drop, got dressed and went to breakfast.

Before he stepped out of the door, Lemon waved, shouting a booming goodbye.

Malfoy turned round to face Lemon.  
“What?”  
“Until this evening, Master Draco!” His eyes widened and he pretended to be shocked.  
“What, Lemony? Are you really going to leave me be for the _whole_ day? Oh no! What will I do without my zesty friend by my side?”  
He smirked and left the room.

When Malfoy entered the Great Hall, he immediately spotted McGonagall, but he couldn’t really see how well Lemon’s incantations had worked from that distance.  
He tried to get a seat as near to the teacher’s table as possible, and on doing so, spotted what he’d been looking for:  
McGonagall had cat ears.  
Small, furry, and grey ears.

Little by little, other students started to notice them, too.  
And, of course, wild rumours began to circulate in the Great Hall. Even at the teacher’s table there appeared to be some confusion; while all were familiar with major and minor mistakes that might occur in transformation from animagus form, nobody had expected that they would ever see McGonagall with the results of such a mistake perched on her head.

As classes ended for lunch break, Draco hurried to find a good spot near the teacher’s table again. He _really_ wanted to know what it was that Lemony had actually done.  
Luckily for him, he didn’t have to go all the way to the Great Hall to ease his curiosity.  
On his way there, he’d heard nervous chattering coming from one of the recently-abandoned classrooms.  
He quickly identified it as a small teacher’s conference between (from what he could make out of their voices) Dumbledore, McGonagall, Flitwick, Sprout, his godfather, and Madame Pomfrey.

 _‘Listening in won’t hurt, now will it?’_ he told himself.  
After all, it’s not like he had anything better to do. 

“Minerva, I don’t understand. What exactly have you done?” asked Flitwick worriedly.  
_‘Even Flitwick’s worried,’_ he thought with amusement, _‘Let’s see where this leads.'_

Draco thought it might be best to hide in the small alcove near the door, and he even managed to get a glimpse of what was happening inside as he moved.  
Leaning against the wall, he crossed his arms and got into a more comfortable position, hoping that this little show would continue for a while longer.

Malfoy spent the next few minutes spying on his professors as they questioned McGonagall, hoping to find some kind of solution.  
Unfortunately, none of them seemed to work.

In fact, after each suggestion, Minerva transformed into her animagus form and back again, bearing her co-workers’ suggestions in mind as she did.

The first time she transitioned back to her human state, she gained a fluffy tail to match her little ears.  
Draco did his best to bite back his laughter, because every new attempt at returning to normal by transforming back and forth between human and cat form only worsened her predicament. Flitwick seemed at a loss, while Dumbledore was faintly amused, and of no help at all.  
In the end, an exhausted McGonagall – now on the brink of tears from frustration – announced that whoever had done this to her would die a slow and painful death.

“And by slow, I mean – Severus, stop that, at once!” she turned around, glaring angrily at Snape, who did not even an attempt to look innocent.  
“Don’t cats like to be scratched behind their ears?” he answered simply, smirking.

Minerva turned again to face the rest of the professors, still infuriated with her current state, and wishing a cruel death on the bloody creature that dared to do this to her.

After a while of her cat’s tail twitching, Snape had had enough of this circus. It had long since become clear to him who the culprit was, but he saw no reason to stop it while he was enjoying the situation.  
Lemon’s potential for entertainment seemed to be wearing thin, though Snape could admit that the zesty creature had many more uses that those that Draco had applied it to. Scrutinizing his feline co-worker’s appearance, Snape was sincerely impressed.

He didn’t notice what he had been doing, having been completely lost in thoughts, until he got some pretty nasty scratches on his left hand from McGonagall’s paw. '  
“ _Severus_! I told you to _stop_ that! Whiskers are sensitive!”

 _Ooops_.

Snape looked around at his colleagues, they all seemed too confused, and so he volunteered to deal with the situation himself.  
So, with a final nudge of kitty’s whiskers – which prompted irritated tail flicking and a near outburst from Minerva – he made his way out of the room.

As soon as Draco saw his godfather he took out his wand and prepared to cast an invisibility charm.  
Unfortunately, he was too late, as Snape had already spotted him.  
Without slowing his stride, Snape grabbed Draco by the wrist and dragged him to the next free classroom, shoving him inside before standing intimidatingly before him.

“I think we both know what this is about,” he paused, “Well done, I have to admit.”  
Draco looked up to him, trying to look innocent, hoping that a puppy-ish expression would get him out of the situation.  
After all, he didn’t want to lose his zesty friend.

“Show yourself,” commanded Snape, unaffected by Draco’s attempts at distraction-by-cute.  
He crossed his arms, drawing his cloak about him, patiently waiting for an answer.

And so it came: Lemon crept out of Draco’s pocket, jumping onto the table next to its master.  
“Well, good afternoon. Nice to finally meet you in person.”

Draco’s eyes widened. “Lemony?! Why are you so nice to him, but not to me?” he whined childishly.  
Lemon turned around, facing the blonde Slytherin coolly, “Can’t you feel his energy? It’s undeniably powerful.”  
It smiled, turning back to Snape politely, “To what do I owe the pleasure and honour of your presence?” it smirked.

Snape couldn’t do anything about the slight upturning of the left corner of his mouth. Still, he pressed on with business, “You need to release McGonagall from the charm you’ve used on her; Sprout is badly allergic to cats, as you very well know. Everything else that needs to be done will be discussed at a later time.”

Lemon looked at him, trying to estimate the seriousness of the situation.  
But, before it could voice a single thought about how much McKittyCat had deserved what it had done, Snape raised an eyebrow in response to his unvoiced thoughts.

“A day is long enough to be torn between forms, is it not?” Draco looked from his zesty friend to his godfather, and back again at Lemon.  
“What do you mean? And what kind of freaking conversation is this?! I’m still here, so would you be so kind as to actually, you know, _speak_?!”

Lemon shot a glance at him, torn between amusement and annoyance.  
“Stupid boy, Master Draco. Think back to our conversation. He,” Lemon pointed at Snape, “doesn’t _need_ to voice everything, because his will is strong enough to be understood by just looking at him.” Snape tapped his foot impatiently.

“Lemon, I am still waiting. Do it”.  
The response with “Do what?” was nearly formulated as a question.  
“You know what, demon. Don’t play dumb with me, it doesn’t suit you.  
Now, come on, snap your fingers and be done with this nonsense, I do not have all day.”

“You seemed to rather enjoy it, Master Potions Master,” replied Lemon slyly.  
Snape’s eyes widened imperceptibly. “Enough!” he barked, finding it difficult to suppress a chuckle at the memory of Minerva’s very springy whiskers.

He cleared his throat, a well-known, and alarming, sign that every student who had even caught a glimpse of the Potions Master feared.  
_'Uh-oh,'_ thought Draco, gulping, ' _This isn’t looking good. Any minute now he’s going to make that face, and then there’ll be hell to pay.'_

And in fact, the potions master did exactly what the Slytherin had thought. Snape uncrossed his arms, and re-crossed them as he straightened his back, raising his left eyebrow in a manner so typically _him_ , eyes blank and unreadable.

Lemon watched him in a state of near-shock, eyes bulging, but quickly regained its composure.  
Snape shot one of his best glares at Lemon, murmuring a quiet but menacing “off with you” as he did.

Lemon turned to Draco on its tiptoes and looked at him.  
“Master Draco” it smiled, bowing. Until that point, Malfoy had observed the whole situation with disbelief, but still he couldn’t help that his eyes widened further at Lemon’s obedience to Snape, and watched his old pal in utter confusion.

“Wait- what?” he voiced his bewilderment very eloquently (10 points to Slytherin for that one).

“My time with you is over, it seems. Don’t you worry, I won’t be gone for forever,” A cheeky wink accompanied Lemony’s words, then it was gone with an oh-so familiar, last plop.

Snape looked at Draco, slightly amused by his flabbergasted expression.

“You just have to know _how_ to give the right commands, Draco. But you’ve done well up to this point. Never thought you had it in you.” 

And with these words, Snape left Draco, now Lemon-less, stood in the classroom and already missing his zesty friend.

 

Draco decided on that day that he too would like to be able to command Lemon and his likenesses with a raised eyebrow.  
He was pretty sure that’s where most of Snape’s power came from, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello my dear readers,
> 
> If you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it, let me know :)


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